A LORRY driver who killed three people in an horrific pile-up on the M6 has been jailed for five years.

Wilbert Porter, 46, from County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, had been driving his lorry for 21 out of 29 hours when he ploughed into the back of a slow-moving mobile crane in February last year.

Judge Elgan Edwards later described him as 'an accident waiting to happen'.

Chester Crown Court heard how Porter's lorry smashed into the back of the crane causing crane driver Andrew Davies, a 25-year-old single man who lived with his mother at St David's Close in Flint, to lose control.

The crane crashed through the central reservation barrier and hit a Vauxhall Estate car being driven by Paul Venus, 43, of Wellesbourne in Warwickshire and then collided with a Leyland Daf truck driven by Clifford Roberts, 52, of Millbrook in Southampton.

Porter's lorry then careered through a bridge parapet and plunged 50 feet down an embankment before nose-diving into the bank of the River Dane near Holmes Chapel but Porter escaped serious injury.

All three other drivers died and friends and family members were in court when the sentence was passed.

Porter, who was working for SK Refrigeration at the time, pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to three counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

The court heard there were signs his tachograph, which recorded the speed and distance travelled by the lorry, had been tampered with.

But he pleaded not guilty to an offence of falsification of a tachograph chart and this charge was allowed to lie on file.

At the time of the collision he had driven for 16 hours without taking a break, which is twice the legal tachograph limit.

Prosecutor Meirion Lewis Jones said experts found no evidence that Porter had braked before the collision, as he claimed.

When questioned by police he denied he had fallen asleep at the wheel and said he had taken breaks along the route but had kept them to a minimum.

Shaun Brogan, defending, told the court: 'He does accept that this must have been caused by tiredness. He obviously made a tragic mistake for which he bears full responsibility.'

Judge Elgan Edwards sentenced Porter to five years and disqualified him from driving for 10.

'Nothing I can do will bring back the three people who died in this tragedy, neither can I bring back the fathers of the eight children who have been left fatherless by your actions,' said the judge.

'This was directly caused by the inattention due to the fact you have driven for too long without a break.'

He added: 'You were, I'm afraid, an accident waiting to happen and tragically it happened in this county and led to the death of three people.

'You were a professional driver, you knew the risks. You should have driven with that degree of care which is expected of someone in your position.'

THE horrific smash which claimed the lives of three people on the M6 on February 10 last year was the worst on Cheshire's motorway network since 1989 and the third worst in its history.

Police who attended the scene said they were 'horrified at the scale of human tragedy'.

Firefighters told the Chronicle how they were confronted with 'total carnage' when they reached the scene close to junction 18 at Holmes Chapel.

Speaking after lorry driver Wilbert Porter had been jailed for five years, Constable Adam Morrall, of the Cheshire Constabulary Motorway Unit, said: 'Even motorway officers experienced in dealing with the aftermath of very serious traffic collisions were horrified at the scale of the human tragedy created by the actions of one individual.

'I only hope that the small number of drivers and haulage companies who do flout the law in the manner which we have heard today take heed of just how high the cost of their actions may be.'

The accident, which happened shortly before 7pm, closed the motorway for nearly 12 hours.

The environment agency was called in to deal with the spillage of over five tonnes of oil in the River Dane and a chemical emergency team worked with the council to deal with damage to the road surface.

Speaking the day after the incident, Cheshire Fire Brigade spokesman Evan Morris said: 'In terms of total destruction of vehicles it was a miracle more people weren't killed.'